several monuments, and one of them appears, both by
Strabo and Diodorus, to have been in Syria, and not improbably in this
very place.

[14] Reland notes here, that the Talmud in recounting ten sad accidents
for which the Jews ought to rend their garments, reckons this for one,
"When they hear that the law of God is burnt."

[15] This Ummidius, or Numidius, or, as Tacitus calls him, Vinidius
Quadratus, is mentioned in an ancient inscription, still preserved, as
Spanhelm here informs us, which calls him Urnmidius Quadratus.

[16] Take the character of this Felix [who is well known from the
Acts of the Apostles, particularly from his trembling when St. Paul
discoursed of "righteousness, chastity, and judgment to come,"] Acts
24:5; and no wonder, when we have elsewhere seen that he lived in
adultery with Drusilla, another man's wife, [Antiq. B. XX. ch. 7.
sect. 1] in the words of Tacitus, produced here by Dean Aldrich: "Felix
exercised," says Tacitas, "the authority of a king, with the disposition
of a slave, and relying upon the great power of his brother Pallas
at court, thought he might safely be guilty of all kinds of wicked
practices." Observe also the time when he was made procurator, A.D. 52;
that when St. Paul pleaded his cause before him, A.D. 58, he might have
been "many years a judge unto that nation," as St. Paul says he had
then been, Acts 24:10. But as to what Tacitus here says, that before the
death of Cumanus, Felix was procurator over Samaria only, does not well
agree with St. Paul's words, who would hardly have called Samaria a
Jewish nation. In short, since what Tacitus here says is about countries
very remote from Rome, where he lived; since what he says of two Roman
procurators, the one over Galilee, the other over Samaria at the same
time, is without example elsewhere; and since Josephus, who lived
at that very time in Judea, appears to have known nothing of this
procuratorship of Felix, before the death of Cureanus; I much suspect
the story itself as nothing better than a mistake of Tacitus, especially
when it seems not only omitted, but contradicted by Josephus; as any one
may find that compares their histories together. Possibly Felix might
have been a subordinate judge among the Jews some time before under
Cureanus, but that he was in earnest a procurator of Samaria before I
do not believe. Bishop Pearson, as well as Bishop Lloyd, quote this
account, but with a doubtful clause: confides Tacito,